The Rising Wind
by Juxtaposie
Summary: The air in the room seemed to ripple. Kataang babyfic. Gift for frozenheat.


**The Rising Wind**

_The air in the room seemed to ripple. Kataang babyfic. Gift for frozenheat. _

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Aang was out brushing Appa when he heard Katara's scream. It took him a few breathless moments to recognize the sound for what it was: his name, shrieked at the top of her lungs in what could only have been scared desperation.

Aang knew his wife was more than capable of handling herself in a dangerous situation. He knew that there were few people in the world who could best her in a fair fight. He knew she had never needed - or wanted - him to save her from anything.

He knew also that he'd left her in the kitchen with their infant daughter.

It took him all of a quarter of a second to make these calculations, and he was off like a shot, dropping the long-handled broom to clatter on the cobblestone, careening down the hallways, calling on his element to gain speed and agility and still losing his footing at every sharp turn when he slowed to keep from slamming into the opposite wall.

_Be okay, _he prayed, when she screamed again. _Be okay. That's all I ask. Be okay._

His thoughts filled up with silly things: wide, gray eyes blinking up at him from a face the color of milky coffee, tiny little hands that reached and strained before mother bent to gather up baby in her arms, laughing as the little hands buried themselves in her unbound hair.

_I've never asked for anything_, he reminded Roku and Kiyoshi and all the others who'd come before him, the door just in sight down a hallway that was suddenly much too long. _Let me have this. That's all I ask. Let them be okay._

He crashed into the door, yanked it open without stepping back, nearly knocking himself in the head in his haste to get into the kitchen. He was on the defensive immediately, stepping through the portal to survey the room with sharp eyes that had only sharpened as the years had passed.

The countertops and walls were free of blood, and things looked as orderly as they ever did, except for a little river of mashed sugar snap peas leading back to a waterfall flowing from the overturned wooden bowl sitting on the floor in front if his laughing, clapping little girl. Sura shrieked happily, and stretched up her chubby little arms, demanding to be held.

"Katara?" Aang called to his wife, who was standing still as stone with her back against the far countertop, bracing herself on shaking arms. Her hair had a distinctly windblown look to it.

"Oh," she breathed, pressing a palm against her forehead, swaying a little. Aang debated on whom to comfort, but Sura didn't seem to be hurt at all. In fact, she didn't even seem to be upset. He went to his wife.

Sura gave an unhappy shriek when her father moved away, and looked for a moment as if she might cry, but then she rediscovered the mashed peas, now spread on the floor in front of her, and decided that painting her face and front with the green goop would be a much better use of her time.

The floor swam just a bit. Katara heard, distantly over the roar in her ears, the sound of her daughter laughing, and Aang calling her name. An arm wrapped around her shoulders, and pulled her back into the kitchen. When her eyes refocused, everything looked sharper.

"Are you all right?" Aang asked, when she seemed confused at the concerned look on his face

She blinked at him.

"You screamed," he reminded her, more than a bit worried by her detachment. "What happened?"

"Nothing," she said instantly, a sudden smile lighting up her features. "Not nothing - something! _Something_ happened. Just…

"Just what? Just _what?!_" he demanded when she pushed away from him and swooped down on Sura, catching the child up in a gleeful hug that left mashed peas on the front of her tunic. When Sura's messy hands reached for her mother's braid, Katara handed the baby off to Aang, who was still just as bewildered as before.

Sura wiped a pea mush-covered hand across his cheek, and then stretched up to bite his chin: most of the bite was gum, because she only had four teeth. Absently, he laid a kiss on the dark wisps of hair that covered her little head, watching as Katara began to rummage frantically through cabinets.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked again, when she took out a jar of what had to be flour, and dipped her hand inside. "Maybe you should sit down…"

"I'm fine," Katara insisted, giving him another sunny smile. "I'm more than fine. I'm ecstatic! I'm… elated! Euphoric!"

"I'm glad you know so many words for 'happy'," Aang answered absently, shifting the baby to his hip. "Are you sure you don't need to sit down?"

"I'll sit down in a minute," she soothed, shaking the excess flower off her hand. "Hold onto her, now. Plant your feet."

"I really think you should sit down," he continued, though he did exactly as she'd asked.

Coming to stand beside him, next to Sura, Katara wrapped an arm around his shoulders before wiping her flower-coated fingers on the baby's upper lip.

"_Any_ foreign substance will make a baby sneeze," she muttered absently. "It's the only way they can clear their noses."

Sura gurgled, grabbed her mother's fingers, and shoved as many of them as she could in her mouth. Then she paused, let go of Katara's hand – which was quickly pulled away – and wrinkled up her tiny little nose, preparing to sneeze.

Instead of skipping a beat as it had the first time, Katara's heart began to race. The air in the room seemed to ripple around Sura as her head tilted back, then she let out a little sneeze, realeasing the pressure that had been rising in her lungs. It was nowhere near as powerful as any of the one's Katara had seen from Aang, but it was enough to rattle the jars on the countertop and send the curtains fluttering – and it nearly toppled Aang, who was so shocked he forgot how to stand and nearly crashed into his wife before remembering that his legs worked.

Sura patted her nose with the palms of both her hands, and laughed delightedly before wiping her snotty face on her father's shoulder.

"Did she- was that- I mean, what…" Aang stammered, staring at the top of the little head resting on his shoulder. One of her hands latched onto his ear and gave it a hard tug.

"I don't think you're the last airbender anymore," Katara said lightly, still smiling as she ran a hand affectionately over her daughter's head.

The next few days would see Aang walking around with a grin that bordered on the idiotic, but at the moment it was all he could do to wrap his free arm around Katara and lean in to kiss her. Sura did not seem to mind that, for the moment, her parents were more focused on eachother than on her. She sat quietly, and when they'd finished their strange ritual she spit up the mashed peas she'd had for snack.

Daddy just laughed, and gave the top of her head another kiss.

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**AN: **Written as a giftfic for frozenheat, who is a possessor fo the previously mentioned mad reviewing skills. Seriously folks, she's magic! She wanted somehting kataang that had to do with him being the last airbender. Naturally, my mind went to a place where he WASN'T the last airbender, but I still think this fits. I love babyfic, don't you?

PS - I named by baby before Katie and Tom. Not exactly the same, I know, but I had it first, damnit! And mine's better anyways.


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